Bearded Dragon Temp Check

[The Serpent Merchant]

Ok so I have my little bearded dragon set up in a temporary set up, she is just under 6 inches long, and is in a 10 gallon. (I'll be replacing the 10 gallon with an Animal Plastics "Uromastyx/Bearded Dragon Cage" in a few months. I will get a 20 gallon tanks if she gets too big for the 10 gallon before then (which I'm guessing that she will)

Right now I have a 18" Zoo-Med Reptisun 10.0 UV bulb that runs the length of the tank and a 100 watt Reptile halogen bulb that is being regulated by my Herpstat 4. The UV tube runs 14 hours a day, and the halogen is set to 110 degrees during the day and 85 at night. I have my herpstat set to slowly transition between the day and night temperatures over 6 hours. So at 7 A.M. the herpstat starts warming the basking spot up from 85 degrees, and by 1:00 P.M. it has reached 110 degrees. At 7:00 P.M. the herpstat starts to slowly back off the heat from 110 degrees. By 1:00 A.M. the basking spot is down to 85 degrees. The ambient temperature in the tank during the day is between 78 and 84, and at night it drops down to between 70 and 75.

Sorry if that seems really complicated... but does everything sound about right?

Thanks in advance.

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

I hate to burst your bubble but those lights are overkill..

I strongly suggest you get rid of that dangerous and worthless halogen lamp and pick up one 100 watt mercury vapor bulb.

This will explain why..

http://www.reptileuvinfo.com/docs/di...gen-report.pdf

I bet he's thinking- gee it's bright in here!!

Get something like this..
http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog/...ry-vapor-bulb/

I believe zoomed has one too.

They should be at least 8 inches from the basking spot and adjusted from there to reach the desired surface temp of the basking area.

[Jabberwocky Dragons]

Some people use mercury bulbs and have success with them but there have been very serious problems in the past and I refuse to them, even if they have been fixed. A regular heat lamp and uvb strip has worked fine for many years and will continue to. For a 10 gallon, you should be fine with a 75 watt basking spot lamp. The distance the uvb bulb needs to be depends on the strength. A 10.0 uvb bulb should be 12-18'' from the dragon although a little closer is fine. There is such a thing as too much uvb in a small, enclosed tank especially if you have a translucent or silkback.

I've noticed a trend towards hotter hot spots recently and am not sure why this happening. 110 in 10 gallon is a bit high. I would dial it back to 105 and no more than 100 for large juvies and adults. They are arguably few better dragon breeders than the Dachius (responsible for the introduction of leatherbacks to the US) and they actually use even lower temps believing it is much better for the dragons as well as the gradual warming up that you use

Keep your ambient temps during the day 74-78, certainly nothing over 80. I would turn the heat lamp completely off at night, they are fine with night drops as low as 68, although 70 would be better. It's a little harder to regulate cool temps in a 10 gallon.

[kitedemon]

I am still starting with dragons but I looked into this and found that in the recent past mega ray zoomed and exoterra had issues with the output of MVB. The same can be said for the compact bulbs and in many cases tubes made in China. I actually was so confused and alarmed by what I had been reading I purchased a UVB meter.

I can't say about the temps but I notice the trend of hotter and hotter hot spots with balls, few would ever have 94 as it was thought to be the max safe temp but now you notice hot spots set to 94-5.

bearded dragons like snakes have the same variations in care sheets temps you can check 5 and get 5 over lapping ranges some say one thing some another. I just took the temps the ones I looked at and picked the highest number that all covered and the lowest and came up with 105/70. Kinda a simple approach but it seems right to me.

I never trust a single care sheet especially as I know a safe range with royals and have seen temps outside that 'safe' range quoted along with more incorrect facts than correct ones.

How long do you actually see 110? is it a long time or just a short one?

[The Serpent Merchant]

I hate to burst your bubble but those lights are overkill..

I strongly suggest you get rid of that dangerous and worthless halogen lamp and pick up one 100 watt mercury vapor bulb.

This will explain why..

http://www.reptileuvinfo.com/docs/di...gen-report.pdf

I bet he's thinking- gee it's bright in here!!

Get something like this..
http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog/...ry-vapor-bulb/

I believe zoomed has one too.

They should be at least 8 inches from the basking spot and adjusted from there to reach the desired surface temp of the basking area.

Seeing that I'm not using the halogen as a source of UV I'm not sure I see your point. I'm not against changing my set up, I just don't understand how a heat bulb controlled by a thermostat is any more dangerous than another heat bulb.

[The Serpent Merchant]

Some people use mercury bulbs and have success with them but there have been very serious problems in the past and I refuse to them, even if they have been fixed. A regular heat lamp and uvb strip has worked fine for many years and will continue to. For a 10 gallon, you should be fine with a 75 watt basking spot lamp. The distance the uvb bulb needs to be depends on the strength. A 10.0 uvb bulb should be 12-18'' from the dragon although a little closer is fine. There is such a thing as too much uvb in a small, enclosed tank especially if you have a translucent or silkback.

I've noticed a trend towards hotter hot spots recently and am not sure why this happening. 110 in 10 gallon is a bit high. I would dial it back to 105 and no more than 100 for large juvies and adults. They are arguably few better dragon breeders than the Dachius (responsible for the introduction of leatherbacks to the US) and they actually use even lower temps believing it is much better for the dragons as well as the gradual warming up that you use

Keep your ambient temps during the day 74-78, certainly nothing over 80. I would turn the heat lamp completely off at night, they are fine with night drops as low as 68, although 70 would be better. It's a little harder to regulate cool temps in a 10 gallon.

Ok so I've set it my Herpstat to 105 during the day and 70 at night (which means the heat lamp won't run as my apartment stays around 73 at night) I have the same night/day ramping. I'll probably get a 20 long in the next week or so and that should fix my ambiant temps.

Sound better? Thanks

[The Serpent Merchant]

I am still starting with dragons but I looked into this and found that in the recent past mega ray zoomed and exoterra had issues with the output of MVB. The same can be said for the compact bulbs and in many cases tubes made in China. I actually was so confused and alarmed by what I had been reading I purchased a UVB meter.

I can't say about the temps but I notice the trend of hotter and hotter hot spots with balls, few would ever have 94 as it was thought to be the max safe temp but now you notice hot spots set to 94-5.

bearded dragons like snakes have the same variations in care sheets temps you can check 5 and get 5 over lapping ranges some say one thing some another. I just took the temps the ones I looked at and picked the highest number that all covered and the lowest and came up with 105/70. Kinda a simple approach but it seems right to me.

I never trust a single care sheet especially as I know a safe range with royals and have seen temps outside that 'safe' range quoted along with more incorrect facts than correct ones.

How long do you actually see 110? is it a long time or just a short one?

I have a UV meter, and it reads 50 μW/cm2 at ground level. Is this enough? The bulb says made in Germany so I would think that it is at least of decent quality.

It is actually at 110 for about 6 hours but I have it set to 105 now. So it runs 6 hours at the night temperature, a 6 hour transition, 6 hours of day temp, then 6 hours transition back to night temp.

I looked over as many care sheets as I could find and tried to find the common ground. Even still you can't beat first hand experiance.

Thanks.

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

Ok so does the reptisun you have supply both UVA and UVB rays then? I ask because when I looked it up online it says it does not. Unless I'm looking at the wrong one. This is why it seemed likely that the halogen was your UV source because they do.

[The Serpent Merchant]

Ok so does the reptisun you have supply both UVA and UVB rays then? I ask because when I looked it up online it says it does not. Unless I'm looking at the wrong one. This is why it seemed likely that the halogen was your UV source because they do.

According to Zoo-Meds website the 10.0 bulbs put out 10% UVB and 30% UVA

[kitedemon]

Halogen have NO UVB at all.

I was recommended the reptisun 10 as well. I asked about uv levels and had a hard time finding answers. Eventually what I was provided was a gradient was needed much the same as heat. That an area that reads in 110-120 uW/cm2 range is good and this will fall off with distance (inverse reciprocal, so it falls off quickly) I use a raised branch so he can get closer to the light and heat. I see a range of 118uW/cm2 at the highest and down to 80-70 on the lower end of the branch to 20-0 on the floor.

Anything in front of the bulb will cut uv and a reflector will intensify it some. I am not an expert at all just trying to learn as much as I can so this information is parroted from a PM I got on a bearded dragon forum. I actually had a exo terra tube that was starting to cause snow blindness I recognized it and shut it off and waited for the order with the new bulb in the post (and meter) it was running at 12 inches 350 uW/cm2 my platform is actually at 10 inches so way to hight. I have been concerned about bulbs ever since.

Mercury vapour bulbs seem to be a good alternative heat and light at the same time. The issues for me (and you) is they cannot be dimmed it is on or off nothing else. The UVB output is suspect as the best manufacturer (German) changed the production specs to suit something else and the bulbs since have been fraught with problems too much uv not enough uv out of balance uva/b uvc output and I decided that although they look great on the surface the underling issues over whelmed the benefits. I had this confirmend by Tracie Kretzschmar whom wrote this article...
http://www.beardeddragon.org/articles/uvintro/

She has been very helpful.